By Kyle Napier, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, Economics and Political Science. Originally published by the Edmonton Journal on June 19, 2026.
Indigenous languages maintain millennia of distinct place-based knowledge, whether ecological, spiritual or relational. However, the overwhelming majority of Indigenous languages across Canada are threatened by the country’s historic and ongoing processes in language devitalization.
Whether in treaty, land claims or negotiations, neither Indigenous Peoples nor their respective Indigenous governments have agreed to relinquish their rights to speak their own languages. However, Canada catalyzed the ongoing separation of Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral homelands, enforced linguicidal residential school policies, the forced sterilization of Indigenous women (particularly in Alberta) and the separation of Indigenous children from their families.
Each year sees the passing of elders, language speakers and knowledge holders who grew up speaking Indigenous languages as a first language.
The Canadian government began collecting data on Indigenous language vitality in 1991. Canada would close the doors on its last residential school in 1997, in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.
Since 2016, statistics on Indigenous languages have recognized both a stark decline in language speakers, as well as a stark increase in those who want to learn Indigenous languages as a second language. Despite committing to over a century of the forced removal of Indigenous children from their families into residential schools, Canada has not inversely supported Indigenous language revitalization initiatives.
Canada has not maintained its fiduciary commitment to Indigenous Peoples across the nation-state; instead, it remains culpable in the wholesale subjugation of Indigenous languages across its lands. Despite complete English and French immersion programs, there are only a handful of K-12 Indigenous language immersion programs in any province or territory across Canada.
In 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission released the Calls to Action, of which Calls 13 to 15 provide specific tangible tasks intended to support the revitalization of Indigenous languages and cultures.
Responding to these Calls to Action, Canada passed the Indigenous Languages Act on June 21, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, in 2019. The act establishes an Indigenous Languages Office and an Indigenous languages commissioner tasked with responding to concerns and complaints regarding Canada’s upholding of this act.
Exactly two years later, Canada would pass the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (UNDA). Many articles support sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples over their language transfer, education and media. Coincidentally, the United Nations recognizes 2022-32 as the Decade of Indigenous Languages.
Despite these legislative changes and globally concerted efforts, there have been no substantial changes to Canada’s commitments to upholding Indigenous languages.
Contrarily, an article published by the CBC earlier this year by Brittany Hobson and Alessia Passafiume highlighted the misspending of the Indigenous Languages Office, and the limited responses from Canada’s Indigenous Languages Commissioner regarding concerns addressed to the office. The article addresses a federal audit into the misspending of the Office of the Indigenous Languages Commissioner, particularly after the 2025 WAVES Indigenous language conference was found to have cost $10 million, and the languages commissioner, Ron Ignace, was found to have bragged about racking up over a million dollars in travel points in the year before his retirement from the position.
Where English and French education is supported by the billions, Indigenous language communities already have to compete for paltry funding pots, which vary across provinces or territories.
Since the passing of Canada’s Indigenous Languages Act, Canada has continually reduced its funding commitments to Indigenous language communities and respective revitalization efforts.
Canada’s own Indigenous Languages Act states a commitment to ongoing adequate funding to support the revitalization of Indigenous languages, to be delivered by respective Indigenous language communities.
This support needs to be comparable to the provincial or territorial funding commitments to supporting English or French education. Where each Indigenous language community context is different, the Indigenous language communities themselves need to determine the most appropriate processes for language revitalization, and the communities shouldn’t be tasked with competing for funding against a $10-million conference.
Canada needs to uphold its own legislative commitments and ensure the support of community initiatives with funding adequate enough to support Indigenous language vitality by the communities most affected by Canada’s historic and ongoing language devitalization measures.
Kyle Napier is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, Economics and Political Science at MacEwan University. He is also a continuing sessional instructor in the Department of Linguistics, as well as Continuing Education, at the University of Victoria.